Graduate Education

Recommendations for colleges, graduate, and professional schools are virtually identical. The schools to which you are applying want academic recommendations from teachers who know your work well. They don't care whether that person is famous, or the department chair, or won a Nobel Prize. They do care whether the teacher taught you in more than one class, whether you wrote a substantial paper or completed a major project, and whether you spoke to the teacher outside of class on a regular basis.
Contrary to popular opinion, teachers from "a while ago" are actually better in some ways then teachers who taught you last semester. This is especially true if the teacher remembers you in any kind of detail. The simple fact that the teacher remembers a student from five or 10 years ago is usually considered a positive sign.

If you're applying to an academic program, having a single work recommendation or recommender from an extracurricular activity is not a bad idea. It can round out your file, and it's a great thing to have on hand in case a school wait lists you and gives you the opportunity to submit anything that might strengthen your file.

Business schools, especially MBA programs, are the only programs that I know of that prefer work recommenders to academic recommendations. They usually want current or recent employers, coworkers, and other people who can talk about your self-discipline, enthusiasm, and creativity. And that makes sense; and MBA program is looking to make upper-level business managers out of lower-level business managers, and the skills I've mentioned go a great way towards doing that.